Merrion Investment Management Co LLC Purchases Shares of 6,400 Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE:NMM)

Merrion Investment Management Co LLC acquired a new position in shares of Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (NYSE:NMM) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm acquired 6,400 shares of the shipping company’s stock, valued at approximately $401,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of NMM. Main Street Financial Solutions LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Navios Maritime Partners by 2,977.2% during the 2nd quarter. Main Street Financial Solutions LLC now owns 750,835 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $38,315,000 after buying an additional 726,435 shares during the period. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Navios Maritime Partners by 1.7% during the second quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 131,707 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $6,721,000 after acquiring an additional 2,169 shares during the period. Acadian Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Navios Maritime Partners by 870.2% in the second quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 126,709 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $6,463,000 after purchasing an additional 113,649 shares during the last quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. grew its position in shares of Navios Maritime Partners by 37.2% in the second quarter. Moors & Cabot Inc. now owns 71,280 shares of the shipping company’s stock valued at $3,637,000 after purchasing an additional 19,330 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. increased its stake in shares of Navios Maritime Partners by 748.2% during the second quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 55,109 shares of the shipping company’s stock worth $2,812,000 after purchasing an additional 48,612 shares during the period. 62.74% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on NMM. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on shares of Navios Maritime Partners from $65.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. StockNews.com raised shares of Navios Maritime Partners from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 21st.

Navios Maritime Partners Price Performance

Navios Maritime Partners stock opened at $61.53 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $54.01 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $49.54. The firm has a market cap of $1.84 billion, a PE ratio of 4.77 and a beta of 1.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49, a current ratio of 0.69 and a quick ratio of 0.69. Navios Maritime Partners L.P. has a one year low of $21.18 and a one year high of $65.89.

Navios Maritime Partners (NYSE:NMM) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 20th. The shipping company reported $3.06 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.84 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $342.20 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $312.39 million. Navios Maritime Partners had a return on equity of 13.63% and a net margin of 30.28%. Navios Maritime Partners’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $3.32 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Navios Maritime Partners L.P. will post 14.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Navios Maritime Partners Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, August 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th were issued a dividend of $0.05 per share. This represents a $0.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.33%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Navios Maritime Partners’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 1.55%.

About Navios Maritime Partners

Navios Maritime Partners L.P. owns and operates dry cargo vessels in Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia. The company offers seaborne transportation services for a range of liquid and dry cargo commodities, including crude oil, refined petroleum, chemicals, iron ore, coal, grain, fertilizer, and containers, as well as charters its vessels under short, medium, and longer-term charters.